The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced today that the two men have given a significant donation to its patent project. The San Francisco based advocacy group says the money will help them “tackle the systemic problems with software patents” as well as hire a new attorney that’s well-versed in patent law.

"The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful," said Cuban in a statement. "Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That's bad for consumers and bad for business. It's time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help. So that's why part of my donation funds a new title for EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels: 'The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents'."

Notch has publicy advocated for easing intellectual property restrictions before – Minecraft’s success is certainly bolstered by pirated copies of the game, and over Twitter he once actively encouraged a customer to pirate it.

"Temporary fixes aren't good enough – we need deep and meaningful reform to protect software development and keep it as free and democratic as possible," said Persson. "New games and other technological tools come from improving on old things and making them better – an iterative process that the current patent environment could shut down entirely. This is a dangerous path we're on, and I'm glad to help EFF move us in the right direction."

Of course, if a spending war is on its way, $500,000 is chump change compared to the amount of money that the current patent system protects. As an advocacy group, Electronic Frontier Foundation can raise very important questions, but when actual fights start cropping up you can bet Apple can throw around some impressive resources.